Today's web justice driveby: Cooks Source Magazine

Cooks Source Magazine editor Judith Griggs is getting a lesson in journalism via the internet today. In 2005 LJ user Illador posted a piece called a "Tale of Two Tarts." Then she found out through friends that Cooks Source had apparently lifted the piece. They published it uncredited after doing some editing to the original. After making reasonable requests for rectifying the matter, Monica got this from the editor:

But honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me... ALWAYS for free!

Wired did that to me once, although they never acknowledged it. They printed one of my comedic usenet rants in their letters section from “anonymous”. It wasn’t as deliberate, but I got a lot of similar “public domain” guff from Wired fanboys.

yes that is obviously the issue. She does make money from this, this is not just another blogger blogging about a blog she read.

Now granted a lot of blogs are like this, but the content of the post is usually original, with excerpts clearly marked as quotations, and with in line or end of article links refering to the source.

I have never seen BB post an article in full unless the entire linked piece was really nothing more than a few sentences and some pictures. And generally I like to think BB drives more traffic to its features than it benefits by hijacking content.

Did this magazine explicitly call for readers to “check out this foodie’s blog for more recipes” or whatever? Of course not.

Reproducing something verbatim, even if the originator is credited, and then profitting from it, is stealing.

This is interesting – looking at the facts, and while dispensing required brickbats to the magazine’s silly and snippy reply, they *did* credit the author – otherwise how could her friends have found the article, which had since been silted over in the blogosphere? So this brouhaha over a web -> print repost seems overblown. This is something billions and billions of blogs are guilty of, and it’s a *free* cooking newsletter at that.

While I wouldn’t want to suggest Cooks Source is some kind of paragon of the ‘open source’ philosophy, aren’t those the issues that this is really about? I’m now even more dubious about the legitimacy of copyright law in the way it stifles the sharing of information when no actual physical commodity is stolen.

You seem to place some weight on the fact that it’s a *free* newsletter. The fact that it’s free doesn’t mean that Judith Griggs isn’t making money off of it. Publications like this can make a tidy profit selling advertisements in their “free” journal. This is a business model that’s been around for quite a while.

Charging advertisers to associate their names with plagiarized content is just as bad as charging readers for it.

Judith Griggs is making money off of the works of others without proper attribution or compensation, pure and simple. That kind of behavior is *exactly* what copyright law is all about stopping.

The difference is with bloggers us one of these practices (good practice) attribute author, (best practice) attribute author & link, most blogs are not for profit (so the spirit of the law would be to share information in most forms, no harm no foul.

However, when you create a for profit product and act as subject matter expert without attributing to a said author then that becomes theft and infringement.

The blogs sphere would have given a pass, but for her condescending tone of the letter. Which leave a (WTF) attitude!

Here’s an oatmeal cookie recipe that was stolen word-for-word without permission, credit, or compensation of any kind. Discovered only after this brou-ha-ha by the original creator in the comments: http://bit.ly/cQByvr vs http://bit.ly/5572Q7

@tehowe: Whether or not the magazine is free to the people who read it (it has a glossy version too, so I don’t know how free it is), it charges money to advertisers, and so makes a profit from its plagiarized content (of which FB has now found many many examples). Being free has nothing to do with it.

(Your comment about blogs doing it the time did make me thing, though. When BB posts a CC-non commercial-licensed picture found on Flickr, and yet they are a commercial enterprise funded by advertisers and their revenue is driven by people reading what they post, including such photos, is that really conforming to the letter of the copyright license?)

@SamSam, we generally ask for permission first, if there is any question about gray-area CC license terms, and I think you’re sort of stretching here to troll Boing Boing by lumping us in with plagiarists.

I dunno Xeni, I kinda see where he’s going with this. I also consider myself quite knowledgeable when it comes to intellectual property (no expert mind) but am not sure where this sits.

Taking BoingBoing out of the equation …

What’s the difference between a blog re-posting an article and crediting it to the author (pretty much standard practice) and a magazine doing the same? Yes the magazine may be paid for by advertising, but so are most blogs.

Although I also feel what this publication has done is wrong, and the assumption that all internet content is public domain is of course absurd … I kind of feel the only the thing differentiating it from what is seen on the web every second of the day is the fact that someone printed this article on to paper.

I’d be interested to hear what makes it more wrong, legally, if anything.

Wow, Xeni, it really wasn’t necessary to accuse me of trolling. It was something I’ve wondered about abstractly for some time, and I was actually asking in perfectly a legitimate way, because I don’t know what it means for a photo to be non-commercial and then used in a commercial site. I would have asked when I first was wondering about it on the old “open thread” post, but that post disappeared in one of the more site renovations of the past couple years.

Thanks for clarifying that you contact the photographers. You could have left it at that, instead of accusing me of trolling.

There was a huge slashdot thread not long ago accusing us of ripping off a photographer (who was in fact a friend of ours!), she released her pics under a cc license, she was a personal pal, and we ASKED — and I’m just really weary of this being brought up in an accusative way. So, if you were asking sincerely, great. But very often of late, people bring up the subject in a totally uninformed way, as if to slam us for a crime we’re not committing, just because they’re looking for some kind of gotcha.

SamSam wrote: “When BB posts a CC-non commercial-licensed picture found on Flickr, and yet they are a commercial enterprise funded by advertisers”

I hear this regularly, but there are two parts. First, the human-readable CC licenses is talking about specific use of the image for commercial purposes. That’s generally well understood to mean using the image for gain related to the image, such as reproducing in a calendar, selling prints, or otherwise creating a product in which the image is part of the goods for sale and an integral part of it. (IANAL.)

The second is the legal contract that the human-readable CC license links to. It says very little about the commercial aspect, notably: “You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. ”

This again isn’t about the use of the item in the context of the whole; it’s about the specific item in question. The phrase “primarily intended” makes it very clear to me.

It sounds like a third category of CC license is needed. Commercial, non-commercial, and not-used-in-any-for-profit-endeavor-in-any-context.

Glenn, you are correct. And I’ve had conversations with various people at Creative Commons about this very issue – even they know that there is a big, nebulous area that needs to be clarified somehow within their licensing scheme!

OT I know – but yes they were looking into this a few years back, I took part in one of the online questionaires – more specifically about charity work which might be a small non-profit or a massive entity with loads of money. The non-commercial part is a bit of a minefield as one person’s NC is another’s blatantly commercial.

But if you approach and get permission direct the CC license doesn’t really mean much – all parts of the license can be waived by the photographer.

CC probably needs to define what commercial means more specifically. It’s one of the few terms not defined in the underlying referenced legal document, bizarrely enough. In common practice, across hundreds of contacts I’ve signed in assigning rights (again, IANAL), commercial use of images was a very specifically defined right related to the use of the image to generate revenue. Let’s hope for a CC 3.0 that’s got that nailed down.

@SamSam Free with ads? That’s also what Google does. Rupert Murdoch has notoriously been chasing them for aggregating news http://bit.ly/cMMJKk (meanwhile driving tons of traffic back to his publishing empire). In the meantime, Murdoch’s enterprises have themselves been aggregating content. http://bit.ly/cs8yLG So to my POV, the meaning of all this is beginning to evaporate like the non-tangibles it purports to protect, but locks down in practice.

And things are only going to get worse if the global counterfeiting/copyright treaty – presently benig negotiated largely in secret – goes through. Michael Geist, Canada’s chair on these issues, has a great blog about it all here: http://bit.ly/pORvf

I don’t think it’s a stretch to ask what’s the difference when BB does it, or for that matter, Tosh.0, or CNN, or whoever.

But we’re not even talking about the same “does it.” Boing Boing does not plagiarize and then lie about it, or give people the kind of bullshit dishonest responses going down in this case. So, fine, compare apples to apples, but we, sir, are not oranges.

I just within the last 72 hours had a very similar experience with what had been an established and approved-by-their-legal-etc-dept’s web *and* brick & mortar (e.g. The Real Me, hands, heart, horses) presence.
I empathize totally with the “situation” Illador endedup embroiled in.
Karma works, baby =)

Ha, I sometimes put in images I meant to work on instead of images I did work on. Sorry Xeni, if you ever found out about those cat photos.. Trying to convince an entire office workplace that they are committing copyright infringement is tough too, because they pay you for your work, so they argue that they don’t even have to put your name on it. I ended up getting fired, but I wonder what would have happened if all the bugs I worked on for Activision had actually had my name on them.

“because they pay you for your work, so they argue that they don’t even have to put your name on it.”

That’s not a claim, that’s a fact.

If you’re employed then your organisation has already paid for your services, they don’t need to credit you for it – it’s normally a choice to credit (or part of an agreement). It’s all to do with IP, it’s quite normal for an employer to own the IP of the work you produce (sometimes even extending outside of working hours).

Don’t you ever wonder why there isn’t a huge list of names at the bottom of Amazon.com – for example – crediting the hundreds of people that have worked on it?

Yeah, it’s called the credits, but it doesn’t help when they have to decide who to let go at the end of a work cycle. Amazon does have that stuff, I even get their fake names when I call them about bad orders.

Copyright law can be difficult to navigate. My understanding is that’s partly why Creative Commons was created. Still, I think more often than not, people just use things hoping not to get caught or believe that it’s easier to apologize, once caught, than ask permission.

(a) Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Works of authorship include the following categories:

(1) literary works;

(2) musical works, including any accompanying words;

(3) dramatic works, including any accompanying music;

(4) pantomimes and choreographic works;

(5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works;

(6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works;

(7) sound recordings; and

(8) architectural works.

(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

In some cases, the magazine is correct in that some articles they have snagged are not copyrightable. (b) above clearly excludes recipes and even descriptions of how to prepare food. The real question is whether the added stuff this girl put in makes this a literary work. Some of the other articles they grabbed clearly were not recipes and were literary works. (Personally, I think her article is a literary work based on the context and other historical research).

I think you’re interpreting that incorrectly. What item (b) says is that you cannot copyright the ACT of (for example) preparing a meal. The WRITTEN DESCRIPTION of how to prepare the meal can most certainly be copyrighted.

But the point is that you don’t even have to add a bunch of stuff about medieval recipes for it to be a copyrightable “literary work” — just the words you use in your description of how to make the dish is enough. “2 cups of flour” isn’t copyrightable, but “Whisk the two cups of flour into the eggs until fully incorporated, then … etc.” can be.

Otherwise anyone could re-print 95% of The Joy Of Cooking, which doesn’t contain much in the way of anecdotes or histories, and sell it themselves.

So take the oatmeal cookie recipe I linked above, http://bit.ly/cQByvr vs http://bit.ly/5572Q7. Everything from “Mix all the flours together, and then add the other dry ingredients. If you have a flour sifter, you can sift the dry ingredients for an even finer flour mix” on down, nine paragraph’s worth, is copied word-for-word. That’s clearly plagiarism (since the original author wasn’t credited) but also illegal use of copyrighted material.

Well, what I was referring to was where you stated “In some cases, the magazine is correct in that some articles they have snagged are not copyrightable. (b) above clearly excludes recipes and even descriptions of how to prepare food.”

What I’m saying is that this is not correct. Descriptions of how to prepare food are copyrightable, otherwise, like I said, the entirety of Joy Of Cooking would be in the public domain.

The process is not copyrightable, but the description is. Adding two cups of flour to eggs is not copyrightable, but the words “gently whisk the two cups of flour into the eggs, taking care to stop when just incorporated” are.

Now, if you perform the same process and put it into your own words, your in the clear. This is why we see so many recipes everywhere that say “Adapted from Joy of Cooking” or whatever, and change the words, or change the procedure a little. The ingredients and process are not copyrightable, but the words used are.

… if this is what you meant, that’s fine. But this same argument has been made by others, and it’s an important distinction.

Copyright law does not protect recipes that are mere listings of ingredients. Nor does it protect other mere listings of ingredients such as those found in formulas, compounds, or prescriptions. Copyright protection may, however, extend to substantial literary expressionâ€”a description, explanation, or illustration, for exampleâ€”that accompanies a recipe or formula or to a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook.

Only original works of authorship are protected by copyright. â€œOriginalâ€ means that an author produced a work by his or her own intellectual effort instead of copying it from an existing work.

As someone who works in a library I’m intrigued by the revelation that “the web is considered ‘public domain'”. If the web–and I assume she means the WHOLE web since she was very non-specific–is ‘public domain’ the libraries and other institutions are paying a lot of money to publishers like Elsevier, John Wiley, and Taylor & Francis for ‘public domain’ material.

And while I’m sure that plagiarism “happens a lot”, I don’t see anything in Ms. Griggs’ defense that says that this frequency makes it acceptable.

Memo to Cooks Source: when you’re in a hole, you stop digging. You don’t send out for a power shovel.

The editor’s attitude makes me think of the attitude that people like Mark Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt have towards privacy: just as they try to persuade us that we should have no expectation of privacy, Griggs seems to feel that we should have no expectation that our work will be free of plagiarism. Similar thought processes underlie the actions of spamming businesses who consider any email address that they come across ‘fair game’, and – when challenged – will offer convoluted justifications as to why we shouldn’t expect not to be bombarded with unwanted ads.

The danger is that if we accept any of these positions then they will indeed become ‘the norm’. Which is why I hope that Cooks Source gets taught a swift and exemplary lesson that will serve as a warning to others.

The FB comments were fun at first, but the sanctimony gets old, fast. Some virtuous pitch-fork welders now seem to be spam-calling the magazine’s sponsors–anyone who had an ad is getting “informed” of the issue. Over and over and over…

When you add “self-righteous indignation” to the greater internet dickwad theory the results are not very pretty.

A lot of the outrage hinges on Griggs’ reply, and the words she chose in her email. From what I can gather, we’re assuming Griggs actually did write this, but I’m curious… has it been verified? I’m no journalist, and don’t know how one would go about verifying… but a lot of the hate seems to stem from Griggs’ tone.

I am by no means defending Cooks Source. Just wanted to point out we’re all making an assumption those words are hers.

And yikes to the numerous instances others are discovering, of CS using others’ work. Regardless of what started it, I doubt this will end well for them. I hope I never get the Public Domain mad at me.

A quick perusal of page scans of the magazine from the Cooks Source facebook page reveals that the contents of the magazine “[are] copy-right protected, and may not be reproduced without permission of the publisher”. Nice! It’s like an Escher-work of copyright interpretation.

It is true that this happens all the time. One crook stole all of the content from my company’s home page, and used it for a competing company. Another bunch of crooks lifted our entire FAQ page and used it verbatim on their site! I could go on. But, believe me, one well-written letter from a lawyer will make them take it down REAL fast.

Copyright law does not protect recipes that are mere listings of ingredients. Nor does it protect other mere listings of ingredients such as those found in formulas, compounds, or prescriptions. Copyright protection may, however, extend to substantial literary expressionâ€”a description, explanation, or illustration, for exampleâ€”that accompanies a recipe or formula or to a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook. (U.S. Copyright Office, Circular #1: Copyright Basics)

So, in many cases, it’s true that you can’t copyright a recipe. But many of the examples found, including Illadore’s initial article, contained more than that. Illadore’s recipe is an adaptation of a 14th-century pie, and she discusses modern substitutions for period ingredients, translations of obscure terms, and alternative sweeteners. All of that is definitely copyrightable. Also, her description of the preparation is unique, and copyrightable.

If Ms. Griggs had actually cooked the recipe and discussed her own experiences and modifications, she’d be in the clear to post the list of ingredients and convey, in her own words, how she made the pie. But she didn’t do that.

“Well, here I am with egg on my face! I did apologise to Monica via email, but aparently it wasnt enough for her. To all of you, thank you for your interest in Cooks Source and Again, to Monica, I am sorry — my bad!
You did find a way to get your “pound of flesh…” we used to have 110 “friends,” we now have 1,870… wow!

Appalling, but not at all surprising. My friend and I had a project we had completed for a class plagiarized later by our instructors. They first published our final report verbatim in a conference, which we shouldn’t have let slide, but we did, because they included us as authors (though not as the primary authors) and we were content enough to boost our paper count without raising a fuss.

They then asked us for help in preparing a larger journal paper, which we declined. Later, I discovered they were about to publish this paper with our results and several pages worth of our text – completely unattributed. Upon the advice of my department chair, I contacted the journal before the publication date and asked them to withhold publication.

Not long after, I received an angry email from one of my instructors. “I am quite disturbed because of the action you took against your teachers!” He claimed that since we declined to help, that it would be ‘plagiarism’ to list us as authors. The chair told me their response meant they were either “very stupid, or trying very hard to cover their butts.” I think that’s the same case here.

The problem here is: you can’t argue with an ignorant person. She doesn’t see anything wrong with what she said or did because, obviously, she is completely nuts. And arrogant. And…just tweeted “Here’s to hoping this has all blown over by tomorrow!”

We’ve found 26 instances of article duplication in various issues of Cooks Source (sic) in the group on their page. https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=196994196748&topic=23238 Articles have been reprinted in Cooks Source from Food Network, NPR, WebMD, Weight Watchers, Whole Living, Simply Recipes, What’s Cooking America, Recipes Today and Chow.com.

Help in finding more would be gratefully received. There is a Google Spreadsheet here, http://bit.ly/dDoxxP, that you can enter other instances of article duplication into.

At this time these are only articles that are duplicated. It is only once the other parties are contacted that we will be able to determine if these are also copyright violations.

As of 22:30 GMT Judith Griggs is unrepentant. Please help us find more examples and build a solid case to force Ms Griggs to stop behaving in this way.

I too get a bit nervous when the reporting almost exclusively involves quoting the same source, and then one another; however, here’s a report which includes references to an interview with one of the magazine’s advertisers:

Cooks Source looks to me like one person’s hobby rather than a more ‘regular’ publication. Don’t know, though. Part of me feels rather sorry for the editor – she sounds like a fool who got cornered. A vicious, condescending fool, that’s the problem. Can’t really pity that.

The editor claimed the piece desperately needed editing, because she failed to notice that certain terms were written in Middle English… on a page dedicated to Medieval/Middle Ages/Renaissance cuisine. Playing Grammar Police isn’t for the inexperienced I suppose.

I don’t know if the situation is different in America, but here in Australia there is no copyright in a recipe – In the sense of a list of ingredients and directions on how to prepare them.
I can’t find a link anywhere to what Cook’s Source actually reproduced, but it would seem to me that all of the original article except for the sections headed “discussion” were certainly already in the public domain, and even if they weren’t then no copyright attaches.
The “discussion” section seems to be the author’s own work, but there is at least an arguable case as to whether the discussion constitutes a “substantial part” of the entire work.
On top of that, if Cook’s Source have heavily edited that section, then the part that remains may not qualify as a “substantial part” of the original.

But honestly, you should be pleased about what’s happened! You should be happy that we’ve carefully sifted through what you’ve done and not just condemned your whole site to an endless series of lawsuits that will bankrupt you. That sort of thing happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially where corporations and lawyers who have to justify their large salaries are concerned. If it’s been a bad experience for you, or you took offense at our helping you in this way, then we’re sorry, but as you are a professional you should know that that your site was in very bad need of substantial editing, and it’s much better now than it was for only having original material. For that reason, we have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for patience or understanding, albeit for such a fine (and very well written!) publication. We put some time into this sifting, you should be overjoyed! We never charge editors for our advice or for pointing out plagiarism, and have many who help us…
ALWAYS for free!

So…has Martha been notified yet? Inquiring minds want to know…and watch Martha’s lawyers stomp Judith Griggs into a fine paste before mixing that past with two parts hot water in a large bowl while gently stirring…sorry…couldn’t help myself.

I’m a couple of days late to the party, but this whole meme grabbed me on my coffee break at work. On lunch I was bored and inspired, so here’s a quick song cover based on the initial email and fb response!

Just a note to point out that as far as copyright law is concerned, properly crediting the original author is irrelevent. Properly crediting the author is important in academic writing to avoid plagiarism.

For all the talk about respecting the original source, I have yet to see a single case where a unicorn has actually been asked their permission prior to having their picture featured in any publication or other commercial media. When will someone stand up for the unicorns?? At least offer them release forms. Jeez.

Until I see the birth, in person, with DNA testing of all those involved, GPS coordinates backed up by astrolabe readings, and full medical readings proving that I wasn’t drugged or dreaming, I refuse to believe anything other than the TRUTH that the president was created in a lab deep under Antarctica by genetically enhanced penguins.

In summary, plagiarism sucks, penguins created our president because they actually feed by absorbing partisan politics from the collective unconsciousness, and not on fish as some would have you believe.

the internet is a little bit bigger than 4chan. sure, 95% of the time when you see a story like this, it’s got anonymous written all over it, but the general population is starting to catch up. it was read by BB’s readership, and facebook is a powerful tool. just a different audience, that’s all.